Clearspring - Services for Building, Deploying and Tracking Widgets

MTV Networks Partners with Clearspring to Distribute, Track and Monetize Content across the Social Web

McLean, Va. - Nov 6, 2008 - Clearspring Technologies, the leading widget network connecting publishers and audiences on the distributed Web, today announced that MTV Networks will utilize the Clearspring syndication platform to deploy, manage and monetize selected widgets and related content. This partnership will facilitate the distribution of MTVN's content onto the Web's leading social sites, allowing users easy access to their favorite content wherever they want it.

MTVN and Clearspring are working together to enhance the experience of MTVN viewers, who are enthusiastic social media users. MTVN widgets enabled by Clearspring will be easily sharable across the most popular social networks, blogs, start pages, and more. This relationship further solidifies Clearspring's position as the leading widget network for media publishers.

Clearspring Unveils 'Smart' Content Sharing Service

McLean, Va. - Oct. 28, 2008 — Clearspring Technologies, the leading widget network connecting publishers and advertisers to audiences on the social Web, experienced a 59 percent increase in worldwide usage of its sharing service between August and September. The company attributes this increase to a growing social trend of communicating by sharing content online, as well as its acquisition of social bookmarking leader AddThis, and newly formed partnerships with leading media publishers such as MetroLyrics and SnagFilms.

According to comScore, Clearspring logged 254 million unique visitors worldwide in September, easily outdistancing its nearest competitor by 93 million visitors. In addition to ranking Clearspring as the global leader in the widget market, comScore revealed that the company also extended its lead by 34 million in the U.S. market in September, growing 43 percent and reaching over 101 million unique visitors in the United States.

"These rankings signal a much larger trend in the social media industry," said Hooman Radfar, chief executive officer and co-founder of Clearspring. "The comScore report helps validate our supposition that content sharing has emerged as a mainstream form of online communication with various opportunities for advertisers to reach an important and growing audience on the social Web."

comScore Ranks Clearspring as the Number One Widget Network Worldwide

McLean, Va. - 28, 2008 - Clearspring Technologies, the leading widget network connecting publishers and advertisers to audiences on the social Web, experienced a 59 percent increase in worldwide usage of its sharing service between August and September. The company attributes this increase to a growing social trend of communicating by sharing content online, as well as its acquisition of social bookmarking leader, AddThis, and newly formed partnerships with leading social media publishers, such as MetroLyrics and KickApps.

Clearspring Acquires AddThis to Create the World's Largest Sharing Service for the Web

McLean, Va. & Princeton, N.J. - Sept. 30, 2008 - Clearspring Technologies, the leading widget network connecting publishers and advertisers to audiences on the social Web, today announced the acquisition of AddThis, the No. 1 bookmarking and content sharing service on the Internet. Together, Clearspring and AddThis will serve over 20 billion views per month and reach more than 200 million unique visitors, creating the most widely used set of content sharing services on the Web.

Both companies achieved market leadership by delivering distinct content sharing products - AddThis providing the market's most widely used tool for bookmarking and sharing Web pages, and Clearspring as the company that introduced the concept of point-and-click tools enabling users to easily move content between Web sites. Together the companies will offer the most comprehensive set of sharing tools available - becoming the de facto universal content sharing platform for Web publishers and end users. The collective footprint of the combined entity will reach a worldwide audience comparable to the 7th largest Web property.

Web Widgets Meet Mobile Video as Clearspring and Transpera Join Forces

Santa Monica, CA - Sept. 24, 2008 - Transpera, providers of the first comprehensive solution to monetize Web video on mobile phones, today announced a significant partnership with Clearspring Technologies, the leading widget network, to further integrate its mobile video service offerings by way of online widgets. The deal includes implementation of Clearspring's online widget technology, featuring the "Send-to-Mobile" capability powered by Transpera, where a user can send a video to a mobile phone from a widget.

ClipBlast! Partners with Clearspring on Video Widgets

Los Angeles, CA - Sept. 23, 2008 - ClipBlast!, the premier Web-wide video navigation and distribution platform, today announced its partnership with Clearspring Technologies (www.clearspring.com) to distribute and track video widgets.

Clearspring and SplashCast Launch Integrated Social Advertising Platform for Consumer Brands

McLEAN, Va. & PORTLAND, Ore. - Sept. 9, 2008 - Social media leaders Clearspring Technologies Inc. and SplashCast Corp. today announced a strategic initiative and a new integrated service that enables brands and advertisers to connect with online audiences across all major social networks.

Clearspring and SplashCast Launch Integrated Social Advertising Platform for Consumer Brands

Clearspring Becomes First Widget Network to Receive ABCi Accreditation

McLean, Va., June 24, 2008 - Clearspring Technologies Inc., the leading widget syndication and tracking service, has been independently audited and accredited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Interactive (ABCi). Clearspring is the first widget platform to complete an ABCi audit, highlighting the company's commitment to accurate tracking and reporting metrics and to meeting the industry's requirement for independent, third party accreditation.

Kickapps and Clearspring Partner to Accelerate Widget Creation, Distribution and Advertising

New York and Mc Lean, VA, June 10, 2008 - KickApps (www.kickapps.com), the leading on demand social media platform, and Clearspring Technologies Inc., the world's largest widget syndication and tracking service, today announced a strategic partnership to further accelerate widget usage and monetization. Under the agreement, Clearspring will promote KickApps' new WYSIWYG Widget Studio (currently in beta), a self-service widget-authoring environment to the Clearspring user base. This will enable Clearspring customers to easily build their own rich-media and interactive widgets with tremendous ease. KickApps will use Clearspring's powerful distribution and tracking services to provide one-click distribution and in-depth analytics to anyone using the KickApps Platform.

Clearspring Secures $18M in Funding

McLean, Va., May 21, 2008 - Clearspring Technologies Inc., the world's largest widget syndication and tracking service, has secured $18 million in a series C funding round that includes leading venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Novak Biddle Venture Partners and other current investors. The new round will fund expansion of Clearspring's viral marketing network, which currently serves and tracks almost four billion widgets monthly. It will also be used to extend Clearspring's reach into international markets and further develop its rapidly growing advertising network and vast data infrastructure and optimization services. Clearspring's category leadership is well-established - according to comScore's Widget Metrix report, Clearspring tallied 126 million unique widget viewers in March 2008, making it the No. 1 widget platform in the world.

Radiohead 'In Rainbows' Widgets

Radiohead is the poster child for web distribution and an autonomous strategy for controlling one's own destiny (while still making money) as an artist in this day and age. So when we heard about th latest Radiohead "In Rainbows" widget, powered by Clearspring, we decided to check it out.

Paramount Enlists Clearspring for 'Indiana Jones' Widget Promo

Paramount is kicking off a promotion for the latest "Indiana Jones" film. The two fans who distribute a widget of the trailer across the most media will score tickets to the world premiere.

Winners will also become red carpet correspondents. Footage of their debut will be streamed onto the widgets following the premiere, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Paramount tapped Clearspring to handle back-end work for the widgets. The company is also building widgets for the upcoming Mike Myers film, "The Love Guru," which will appear on the film's MySpace page. Eight to 10 virals and teasers will be uploaded to "Guru" widgets.

Clearspring Partners with PointRoll for Ads on your Widgets

Clearspring has made a number of strides in the past couple of months, building on the new trends that we've seen take shape lately, from "open" networks to new ad networks. Always one to stay at the forefront of these trends, Clearspring has launched its own ad network, and teamed up with PointRoll for an exclusive partnership for providing rich media ad options for clients. Clearspring already had widget ads, but the new ad network allows ads to be placed on other widgets. See below for an example on how ads are being integrated into content widgets with Clearspring's new ad network (Virgin Mobile's ad displays in the bottom left corner).

Widgets Gone Wild

NEW YORK It was clear widgets had arrived when the first-ever conference devoted to marketing via the small, portable Web applications, WidgetCon 2007, hit New York this past July, drawing reps from digital players including Fox Interactive Media, Denuo and Clearspring Technologies.

Now comes another turning point, as McLean, Va.-based Clearspring on Dec. 10 gears up to roll out the Widget Ad Network, enabling media companies to create ad-embedded widgets distributed via social-networking sites, desktops and mobile phones. Media outlets including CBS, Fox and The Huffington Post have signed on, with ad support from Virgin Mobile, Blockbuster, T-Mobile and Visa. Peggy Fry, senior vp at Clearspring, boasts that widgets may be poised to overtake banner ads as a favored digital marketing tool.

World's Largest Widget Syndicator Cleaspring Secures $18 Million in Funding

McLean, Va., May 21, 2008 -- Clearspring Technologies Inc., the world's largest widget syndication and tracking service, has secured $18 million in a series C funding round that includes leading venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Novak Biddle Venture Partners and other current investors. The new round will fund expansion of Clearspring's viral marketing network, which currently serves and tracks almost four billion widgets monthly.

PointRoll and Clearspring Form Exclusive Partnership to Enable Viral, Rich Media 'SnaggableAds'

McLean, Va., and Conshohocken, Pa., Dec. 10, 2007 - Clearspring Technologies Inc., the market leader in widget syndication and tracking, and PointRoll, Inc., the leading developer of innovative rich media solutions, today announced a strategic alliance. Under the terms of the exclusive partnership, advertisers currently using PointRoll to incorporate rich media into their online campaigns will now be able to leverage Clearspring's viral sharing technology to convert new or existing rich media ads into SnaggableAds.

Clearspring Launches First Widget Ad Network

McLean, Va., Dec. 10, 2007 - Clearspring Technologies Inc., the market leader in widget syndication and tracking, today announced the launch of the Widget Ad Network. Clearspring's Widget Ad Network provides media publishers an easy and scalable solution for monetizing digital content across social networking sites, start pages and blogs, by creating an ad network to serve ads within the publishers' widgets. Clearspring is the first widget syndication platform to provide publishers a single source for widget creation, content distribution, in-widget advertising sales, ad serving and performance tracking and reporting.

Clearspring Partners with PointRoll for Ads on your Widgets

Tear Down This Wall: Clearspring Blurs the Line Between Facebook and the Widget Ecosystem

I was starting to get a little worried about the impact that Facebook was having on widget platforms like Clearspring, Widgetbox, Gigya, Musestorm, and YourMinis. It seemed that the combination of Facebook's control of the platform and the Flash-unfriendly nature of the Facebook environment was marginalizing these companies. In short, it seemed to me that the widget platforms were getting outplatformed by Facebook.

After all, as a widget / app publisher, do I really need third party distribution tools when Facebook is already giving me distribution tools within their social graph? Do I really need widget analytics when Facebook is already giving me adoption and engagement numbers? And is an add to Facebook button all that useful when the output is just a neutered Flash widget that appears only in the news feed, and requires the user to hit "play?"

More discouraging to me was the apparent lack of creativity coming from the widget platforms in regards to Facebook. While companies like Slide, RockYou, and HotOrNot gleefully churned out apps with little to no connection to their core business, in the process, successfully building out massive footprints which can in turn be used for advertising / cross promotion networks, the widget platforms stayed quiet.

Well, they're quiet no longer - at least, Clearspring isn't.

MySpace Widget Explosion: Clearspring, MyCityMate, Pikicamp

There was no doubt that widgets would be big this year, but it's turning out to be an even larger trend than many of us expected.

8 Startups to watch out for in 2007

Clearspring Technologies, a leading provider of widget syndication services, today announced that it has secured $5.5 million in its second round of financing. The round was led by Phil Bronner of Novak Biddle Venture Partners and Miles Gilburne of ZG Ventures, who also led Clearspring's first round in 2006.